Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Badam Cake

Badam Cake/ Badam burfi - preparation time 45 to 1 hr
My regular deepawali sweet dish because even if we cannot cut cake we can serve this as halwa :-). During first time it came bit sticky which I corrected by stirring for few more mins with some water sprinkled.

The Badam(almond) is costly but we can make It in little quantity and eat. When you buy badam cake or halwa in sweet shop it will be very costly. For this diwali surely try this sweet dish and enjoy. We don't require much sugar also ( as we use for mysurpa) and ghee is required only to coat the plate.


You can make the cake thin so that people won't waste the sweet. Badam cake will be rich in taste and also good for health. For festival occasion like diwali surely you should make this sweet, share and enjoy the happiness.


Hope this sweet dish will get into your deepawali snack list. Mom used to make cashew cake but I prefer badam as it contains less cholesterol when compared to cashew. Also for cashew cake you have to add little more sugar because of the slight bitter taste which will be present in cashews.



We went to friends home last week. I thought instead of getting sweets why don't prepare in home, so that it will be special. I decided and made badam cake. To my surprise it came out well. I made this sweet for deepavali but this time it came better when compared to that. I thought of sharing this to you all. This recipe is easy and can be made with little amount of ghee.

Ingredients:-

Badam paste - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 or 3/4 cup
Water - 1 cup
Saffron - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric - pinch
Ghee - 3 tbsp


Preparation method:-
Soak the badam for 1 hr and peel of the skin. Soak the peeled badam for another 1 hr. Grind this to paste (little fine than rawa/sooji but, not to very soft paste).

In a heavy bottom pan boil sugar with water. This should be one string consistency.

Add the badam paste and stir continuously.

Soak the saffron in i tbsp of hot milk and crush so the milk changes to beautiful yellow color. To this add the turmeric.
Mix this with the badam and stir continuously.

Meanwhile coat a plate with ghee and keep.
When you keep stirring the bubble will be slightly white. At this stage add 2 tbsp of ghee and stir.
Transfer this to the ghee coated plate and cool this plate in water so it will become hard.

In a knife coat the ghee and make to cake when it is bit hot.
Yummy home made badam cake is ready. Enjoy this healthy snack. You can use less sugar also.

Pori orundai (Puffed rice flake ball)

Pori orundai - preparation time 30 to 45 mins
For karthigai deepam i tried pori orundai first few pori orundai came out well. I am not fast enough to make the balls so pori started absorbing the vella pagu. Try in small quantity. The pagu will be hot so be careful while making the pori orundai.

Ingredients:-
Grated Jaggery - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/4 cup (To melt the jaggery and remove the dust)
Aval Pori - 1.5 cup or 2 cup
Rice flour - 2 tsp
Cardamon powder - 1 tsp
Chopped coconut - 3 tbsp

Preparation method:-

Using flour seive or filter remove the nice dust from the aval pori you got from shop. Or use a clean dry cloth and rub the aval pori so the dust will stick to the cloth. Keep this in air tight container.
En - Anubhavam

Melt jaggery along with water. Remove the dust by filtering and boil it till the jaggery comes to thick consistency. Add cardamon, chopped and roasted coconut to boiling pagu.
En - Anubhavam

En - Anubhavam

When you drop the pagu in plate and cool it will become hard like small ball (when you hit it sound will come) this is correct stage.
Now mix the aval pori with the pagu.
En - Anubhavam

Coat your palm with rice flour and take the pori pagu mixture to make balls. It will be hot and stick so be very careful. If it is very hot you can make balls after it is bearable.
En - Anubhavam

If you find difficult it making balls don't worry it will taste well so you can serve in cups.


Note: You can add roasted groundnut/roasted bengal gram to this mixture and make pori orundai it will be tasty.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Cashew cake

Making of Cashew cake - Preparation time approximately 45 to 1 hr.

Hope you all celebrated Deepavali well. This time i made few more sweets along with Gulab jamun & Pooran boli which already exist in this blog. I am sharing the cashew cake recipe below. 

Regularly i will make cashew cake but this time it became a big adventure for me. When i made and transferred to greased plate it didn't come as cake so again i transferred to pan and boiled again to get the correct texture. Finally it came out well and made cashew cakes.


Ingredients:-
Cashew paste - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 1/4 cup

Preparation method:-
Soak cashew in water (i tried with hot water this time but, you can use normal water also) for 2 hrs.
Grind soaked cashew in blender to coarse paste (before fine paste state).
In a heavy bottom pan, add sugar, water & mix well when it is dissolved, start boiling till you get one string consistency (you stick the pagu between two finger and take the fingers one small string will appear.
At this stage add the cashew paste to the pagu (if you want you can switch of the stove, mix well and then boil again)
You have to keep on stirring the mixture till it leaves the side. Add the ghee slowly when the whole texture becomes fluffy (will be white and bubbling ,will start to come up).
Coat ghee in a plate and transfer the cashew mixture. When it is cool you cut using ghee greased knife. It will be good.
It will come fine even you are not able to make cake don't worry you can serve as cashew halwa. You will be able to make only if it is transferred in correct texture. If you don't take in correct state it will become to powder state.


Try it out surely you will like this sweet. If you are trying for first time try in very little quantity.